Knitting-machine.



No. 808,784. PATENTED JAN. 2, 1906. B. T. STEBER.

KNITTING MACHINE.

APPLICATION'IILED 0013.15, 1904.

WITNESSES: INVENTOR Gk 0M w ip/#64] -E @M ZMW UNITED STATES KNlTTlNG-IWACHINE.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Jan. 2, 1906.

Application filed October 15, 1904:. Serial No. 228,659.

,in connection with aknitting-machine such as that described in my Patent No. 753,645, dated Marchl, 1904, an improvement over Patent No. 751,213, dated February 2, 1904.

It consists of certain novel constructions, combinations, and arrangement of parts, as will be hereinafter fully described and claimed.

In the accompanying drawings, Figure 1 is a detail sectional view of a portion of the machine, showing the web-holder cylinder, the needle-cylinder, the web-holders, and means for operating them. Fig. 2 is a top view of the web-holder cylinder.

In knitting-machines which are capable of producing a fabric such as a stocking or sock, knitting the parts thereof continuously without running the cloth from the machine, it is necessary to use a tension device upon the fabric for keeping the same taut at the active knitting-needles and which will be capable of varying the tension in accordance with the requirements of the fabric being knitted.

The machine to which 1 have applied my new tension device is of the class of knittingmachines which employ cams to operate the knitting-needles a few at a time continually around the periphery of the needle-cylinder in consecutive succession in a fixed and positive position with reference to the cam-ring, and it is operated in any usual and well-known manner, and it is provided with a main driving-shaft 101, which receives its motion by means of a belt wheel or pulley. Secured to this shaft is a beveled gear 102, which transmits motion to the needle cam-ring above in such a manner as to revolve it at the same speed and in the same direction as the mitergear 75. The needle-cylinder 3 telescopes over the web-holder cylinder 68 and is securely fastened thereto, and the web-holder cylinder is fastened firmly to the bed .of the machine by means of the cage 90, which surrounds it, whose base 89 has a projecting wing at front and rear. (Shown in broken section in front.) Said wings are attached to bed by means of vertical rods. The cam-ring revolves around the needle cylinder and is located above and upon the bed-plate 104 and transmits motion to the needles which reciprocate inthe grooves 63 of the needle-cylinder 3 and of the skeleton cylinder 103. Rigidly attached to the inner end of the shaft 101 is the mitergear 71, which transmits motion to the mitergear 75. The miter-gear 75 is secured to revolve loosely around the web-holder cylinder 68 and the web-holders, the web-holder 64, which reciprocates in the groovesaof the webholder cylinder, remaining stationary.

Securely attached to the upper end of the miter-gear 7 5 is the cam 100, inclined two ways, so its upper surfaces form two sides of a triangle. The miter-gear 75 rides upon a collar 74. This collar forms a support for the miter-gear 7 4t to rest upon, and it may be made fast to some portion of the frame of the machine in order to support and hold steady the lower end of the web-holder cylinder 68. The web-holders 64: have projecting portions 70, which project over the path of the cam 100 in such a manner that as the cam moves underneath them in either direction they will be lifted thereby by means of the inclined surface of the cam.

It will be noted that with this mechanism the web-holders are lifted consecutively, one

following its neighbor in its vertical movement, the cam-surface raising them until they reach the summit, when they drop by reason of the weights 69 or their equivalent, which continually draw down on them, and at the same instant the hooks at their upper end take hold of the fabric.

The cam 100 is made somewhat higher than actually required to operate the web-holders in order to secure a good tension upon the fabric whether long or short loops are being knitted. This cam 100 is so timed as to always be in a position other than in alinement with that portion of the needle-cylinder where the knitting is being done and is preferably about on the opposite side of the needle-cylinder. By referring to the drawings it will be observed that the cam 100 slides under and en gages two or three web-holders at a time; but this in no way affects the tension upon the cloth where it is being knitted for the aboveexplained obvious reasons. I have found in practice that this will produce a uniform and automatically-adjustable tension to the fabric.

The lifting of alternate weights, as in my patent above referred to, reduces for an instant the tension at some portion of the circumference of the web Where knitting is taking place, and this affects to a greater or less degree the uniformity of the fabric being knitted.

When the machine is knitting a heel or toe, which operation is fully explained in the above-referred-to patents, the cam will lift the Web-holders first by one inclined side of the cam 100 and then by the other side, the operation in either case being identical to that while the machine is knitting a circular web.

It will be observed that whether the machine is knitting round and round or oscillating to and fro, as in making a heel or toe, the lifting of the web-holders to take a new hold upon the cloth is always done at such a position with relation to the active knitting-needles as not to diminish the tension or alter it in any way upon the cloth at the place of knitting, and that by this arrangement I am enabled to knit a perfect fabric in so far as it is controlled by the tension upon the cloth without the aid of any additional holding-down device, and that if the weights or springs are of a proper tension the cloth cannot climb up the needles at any time.

Having now described my invention, what I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

1. In a knitting-machine the combination of a series of web-holding hooks, a cam having an inclined surface for directly raising them, and an annular revoluble holder for carrying said cam, beneath a portion of the needle-cam cylinder opposite the needle-actuating cam, substantially as specified.

2. In a knitting-machine the combination of a series of web-holding hooks, a cam having an inclined surface for raising them by direct contact, and a miter-gear for carrying said cam, a main driving-shaft employing a beveled gear to transmit motion to the needle-operating cam-ring and a miter-gear to transmit motion to the web-holder cam, substantially as specified.

4. In a knitting-machine the combination with a series of web-holding hooks, said hooks having portions to reach over the path of their actuating -cam, of an actuating cam mounted upon the upper surface of an annular cam-holder, and means for moving said actuating-cam in such a manner that it will raise first one hook then its immediate neighbor and so on continually raising the hooks in consecutive succession, substantially as specified.

5. A web-holding mechanism for knittingmachines comprising a series of web-holders, means for normally pulling them downwardly and a cam engaging said holders, and capable of lifting them consecutively.

6. In a knitting-machine a web-holder com prising hooks capable of engaging the web, means for pulling them downwardly, and means for lifting them consecutively.

BERNARD T. STEBER. 

